Take firefights to a futuristic new level in Blacklight: Retribution, a free-to-play FPS. See through walls with the HRV, deploy mechanized Hardsuits, and customize your weapons to dominate the opposition.

February 24

It is about time that we talk about the next big Blacklight update - including new maps, new items, major infrastructure changes, and some balance changes. Hardsuit Labs and Perfect World are working hard to merge the existing PC US/EU versions of the game with the PS4/Russia version of the game while also making sure the whole process is as seamless for our veterans as possible.

Who Is Hardsuit Labs?

Hardsuit Labs is a totally new Studio formed by the veterans of Zombie Studios. HSL has acquired Zombie’s rights to Blacklight: Retribution and is working with existing partners. HSL is working hard to bring the latest and greatest that Blacklight has to offer to each and every player around the world. This means PS4, PC, and anywhere BLR is, HSL is behind it and actively supporting it.

Our Goal

Content parity. For those of you who are not familiar, content parity is the concept of making sure that your product is equal on all platforms that it is available on. Our main objective moving forward is to have a single version of Blacklight: Retribution across all platforms, and to keep it that way.

Technical Challenges

The current PS4/Russia version of Blacklight is very different from the US/EU version, especially behind-the-scenes. Upgrading the US/EU version to the latest version is going to be a massive undertaking, as we have multiple years’ worth of player data stored in our databases, most of which will need to be updated and made to fit into the new systems.

What this means for existing veteran players is that some of your items will change how they work, and in some cases be completely replaced. We will pay close attention to the balance between the values that is being removed from each player and provide equivalent value in return. We think you guys are totally on board with the idea of making things match up so we can bring out the update. We'll watch for feedback on this topic as well.

The actual upgrade process, after it goes through our battery of tests, will most likely take multiple days’ worth of downtime. The differences between the current version and the new version are so vast that players will also be required to uninstall their current client, then reinstall the new one. The new installers will be made available as soon as the upgrade process begins, which should allow ample time for players to get the latest version of the game while the servers are still down for maintenance.

WHEN?!

We are still early in the process, and with so many moving pieces, we don’t want to announce a launch date until we’re confident in the product that we would launch. Regardless of when we can ship the update – we want you all to know that it’s being worked on right now, every day.

Keep an eye out for our upcoming preview blogs on all of the new content. Kick the tires and light the fires, Agents – Blacklight is coming back in a big way.

Reviews

"This is not only a great example of a professional and credible free-to-play game, but it's also one of the best first-person shooters I've played. I am quite serious when I say that, too. This game is a serious FPS contender, and its freemium status should not diminish your expectations. I wholeheartedly recommend you jump in and give it a try. It'll cost only your time to give it a whirl, and I am certain that it'll be time well spent."
90 - Destructoid

"Great shooting mechanics and deep customization options make for an addictive combination, and its free-to-play model makes it easy to jump into with no upfront cost."
85 - IGN

"The matter is simple – the game is free to play and, if you take my word for it, an excellent shooter. In a perfect world, it would knock the CoD series on its ass."
90 - Computer Games

4-Player Onslaught Co-Op

Get your team together to face the zombie horde in the Onslaught mode. Survive 10 waves of enemies, including civilians infected by the SIV virus and the highly-armed soldiers of The Order. Don't get too comfortable in your defense, though, because you'll need to sprint through the map to complete objectives and unlock more ammunition.

Hope your shotgun's ready, Agent...

About This Game

Take firefights to a futuristic new level in Blacklight: Retribution, a free-to-play FPS. See through walls with the HRV, deploy mechanized Hardsuits, and customize your weapons to dominate the opposition.

In Blacklight, mastering the futuristic tech is half of victory. You'll need to carefully balance your loadout, from the extreme customization possible in designing your firearms, to the equipment you carry and the in-match bonuses you can unlock. The Hyper Reality Visor (HRV) allows you to look through walls and spot enemies, and attack from where they aren't expecting - but be careful, because you're vulnerable while using it.

The other half of victory? Raw skill, same as it's always been. Good hunting, Agent...

PUNKBUSTER INCLUDED
PunkBuster™ Anti-Cheat from Even Balance, Inc. is required to play Blacklight Retribution. This program will be installed alongside the game client.

Key Features

Hardsuits - Use a variety of upgrades in each match, including calling in the hulking Hardsuit mech. Powerful but slow, this armored suit packs a one-shot, one-kill railgun and a high velocity minigun to clear rooms... fast.

Weapon Depots - Scattered across the battlefield are Weapon Depots that supply your team with additional ammo, heavier weapons such as a Rocket Launcher, or provide the ability to call down airstrikes and Hardsuits.

Free to Play! - Blacklight: Retribution is a fully Free-to-Play shooter. Earn Game Points (GP) after every match and use them to unlock various armor and weaponry for your Agent in game.

Tons of Game Modes and Maps - Combat is engaged on a number of different 7 different game modes across 9 beautifully detailed maps. Game modes includes classics such Team Death Match, Domination, Capture the Flag, and Kill Confirmed while introducing new favorites likes Netwar.

Private Servers - Want to scrim with your clan mates? Challenge someone 1vs1? The private server option allows Agents to set up their own password protected server away from the pesky trolls.

Spectator Mode - Learn tips and tricks from the top players in Spectator mode, or simply enjoy the chaos from the best seat in the house.

System Requirements

Minimum1:

OS:Windows® XP / Vista / Windows 7 (32-bit)

Processor:Dual-Core CPU

Memory:2 GB RAM

Graphics:256MB DX9 GPU (Geforce 8xxx or Radeon HD2xxx)

DirectX®:9.0c

Hard Drive:8 GB HD space

Sound:DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Other Requirements:Broadband Internet connection

Recommended:

OS:Windows 7 (64-bit)

Processor:Quad-Core CPU

Memory:4 GB RAM

Graphics:1GB+ DX11 GPU

DirectX®:9.0c

Hard Drive:8 GB HD space

Sound:DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Other Requirements:Broadband Internet connection

Copyright (C) 2012, Zombie, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published and distributed by Perfect World Entertainment under license from Zombie, Inc. Blacklight Retribution, and the Blacklight Retribution logo, are trademarks of Zombie, Inc. and are used under license. Zombie and the Zombie Logo are registered trademarks of Zombie, Inc. in the United States and elsewhere. All other copyrights or trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are being used under license. Unreal, Unreal Technology and the Powered by Unreal Technology logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States and elsewhere. Unreal(R) Engine(tm), Copyright 1998-2012, Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved. Uses Bink Video. Copyright (C) 1997-2012 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. Bink Video is a registered trademark of RAD Game Tools, Inc. Powered by Wwise, Copyright 2006-2012 Audiokinetic Inc. All rights reserved. Uses Scaleform GFx, Copyright 2012 Scaleform Corporation.

The game itself is ♥♥♥♥ing awesome. Gameplay, graphics, style and ♥♥♥♥, I remember that when it came out and was quite popular, people were saying that it made Callofdoody look like an even bigger ♥♥♥♥. HOWEVER, it is not supported anymore by it's devs because something ♥♥♥♥ed up between them and their editor. No updates, nothing, it's just been left to rot. Moreover, the community was ♥♥♥♥ed up from the start. I'm not joking, it's hard to find a server without someone complaining about everything, and it's even worse nowdays. Lots of weapons and items are considered noobish by people who do not understand how to counter them or just like to say "omg u use this, noob!" to feel sorta better at the game. Therefore, if you dare killing someone with the anti material rifle, (an anti tank rifle, as a primary weapon) expect to be insulted every single ♥♥♥♥ing time. I've met a lot of normal dudes of course, but it gets more and more annoying to have the chat being used as an insult bucket. I just quoted an example above, but there is much more. Anyway, try it if you wanna experience something cool with the wallhack for everyone called HRV, which allows you to plan everything, and play tactical. This mechanism is really well made, and if people were normal on BLR, maybe we could see some cooperation between players!("what? play as a team? what does that mean?") However all of this was missed and blacklight will stay a troll nest abandonned in the middle of nowhere. An abandonned utopia of the best FPS ever made.

***This review reflects the game as it was when the zombie co-op mode was first released. I will update the review once I have spent some time in the current version. Also, read my note at the end about the Steam DLC and ingame purchases.***

A Call-of-Duty-ish, loadout-based, first-person-shooter with a massive range of weapon and equipment customization. Players are equipped with a "HRV" hud that runs on a meter and is activated to see through walls to track allies and enemies. You can earn a sort of in-match currency or resource that can be used to purchase heavy weapons, such as grenade launchers, flamethrowers, RPGs, and even nano-swords (think Metal Gear's High-Frequency Blade). This resource can even be used to call in mechanized exosuits called "hardsuits" that dominate the battlefield with a high volume of firepower and their heavy armor gives added protection.

The game, for the most part, is not pay-to-win. Most weapons are equally balanced and are all viable. The standard assault rifle that everyone gets is one of the better weapons in the game. The only pay-to-win is that you can use real money to unlock weapons, gear, and gun parts faster. Also, there's the Heavy Assault Rifle, which is OP, but even with real money I don't think you can buy it permanently. Real money is mostly used for cosmetics or bonuses, such as advanced XP / in-game money rates.

The game has plenty of gamemodes to choose from and it feels fair to play. It's also very visually pleasing, as well as being easy on your system. As long as you have a decent computer, you should be able to run it just fine.

On the Zombie Co-op: It feels fun and is pretty challenging. Unlike other games that have PvP Zombies versus Survivors, this is a PvE survival mode where the players face waves of unique NPC's and bots as a team. I don't remember much about it other than you will run out of ammo a lot unless you keep picking up the weapons the zombie soldiers drop, or you have one of the more powerful melee weapons / nano sword things.

Overall, I'd give it a 8.5 / 10. It's fairly solid, but sometimes it just feels a little... less than optimal? Hard to explain, but sometimes you feel like it could do more than what it currently is doing, if that makes any sense. Maybe that's because it's a free-to-play game.

***One thing to note: I would not purchase any of the Steam DLC packs or purchase anything in-game really, at least for a while. There have been reports of things not working and people losing their money in general. And honestly, you don't really need them, the game's fine as it is without you paying anything.***

Great game when it came out. Then it went to PS4 and got screwed there and at some point they decided to switch over to a new client or something called ARC, and every time I tried to play the game it would not let me sign in unless I made a ARC account and downloaded the client. This game was great but it has been screwed, plus the free to play/ paid parts slowly got terrible too. RIP great game, just like Bullet Run

>Download from Steam>Launch game>Wait until the launcher finishes patching the game>Hit "Play">Greeted with login page>Create account>Alt+Tab>Confirm account via email>Alt+Tab>Try and log in>"Incorrect username or password">Ok no big deal maybe I just entered it wrong>Type in password more carefully this time>"Incorrect username or password">Oh well, maybe I typed it in wrong during the registration>Alt+Tab>Open Chrome and go on the website>Try to log in there because maybe it's just a problem with the game>"Incorrect username or password">Click "Having trouble logging in">Reset password (have to go through 2 Captchas do so not usually a big deal but I was pretty irritated by now)>Alt+Tab>Try and log in>"Incorrect username or password">*Sigh*>Alt+Tab>Reset password to something super easy to remember (hooray for more damn captchas)>Alt+Tab>Try and log in one more time

I want you try and guess what happened next. Just go ahead and take a guess.

>"Incorrect username or password">Alt+F4>Litteraly made the exact same face as my profile picture

At least the uninstall worked

Edit: For any future readers, you have to enter your email as your username, according to the comments below.

This is an absolutely brilliant game (check my hours on record to verify this), but sadly has died on the operating table. Arc no longer provides support for BL:R; no new items, maps, updates, etc. Worse is that the servers have fallen to pieces, and you're now lucky if you can play more than two or three games before it kicks everyone off. They're fully aware of this issue, but it's been a year without any hint of resolution, and trust me, there won't be any coming, ever. This game has been completely and totally abandoned by its developers. And as a result, the dedicated player base it possessed has fled to greener pastures. It's a massive disappointment, as there still exists no other free FPS of BL:R's caliber to replace it, but such is life. RIP to a once great game.

Edited to add: Game ownership has transferred to a new company, though retaining most of its current employees and developers. Only time will tell if they intend on resurrecting the PC version of the game, or whether all developer attention will remain on the PS4 version.

I have had played this game for a huge amount of time, in those times i spent hours in a row playing blacklight with friends, it was great, but as soon as the PS4 version of BLR came out, the game died completelly, all admins in PC where moved to ps4 or fired, and the game hasnt had an update in around 1 year (a real update with something added, not bug fixes). anyways, the servers in which i had 150 ping came to be over 600, anyone who isnt from usa cant even play. BLR please come back to who you were :´(.

The game itself is pretty fun, the artstyle and cyberpunk feel is amazing, however the Free to Play model they use is about as bad as it can get. You can customize anything for cheap...as long as you're willing to shell out more credits to renew the rent, each item can either be rented or permanently owned however the price scaling is ludicrous. The price scaling runs about like this, 1 Weapon Accessory that costs about 395 GP (InGame Earned Currency) to rent, usually the rent scale is 3 days to 7 days, however to own it permanently, it's going to cost you about 3750 GP for ONE accessory, to put this in perspective you earn ABOUT ~200 GP per match (Start to End), that means you're going to be playing about 19 matches just to get one. single. item. Alternatively you can pay Zen which is obviously the cash-currency of the game and to give you an idea of the cost of items through actual money, $10 nets you 1000 Zen, to get that previously mentioned weapon accessory it'll cost you 300 Zen or $3 for 1 single accessory. This game would be amazing if it provided players with more options to customize their character without having to spend actual money. If you're looking for another Sci-Fi F2P game, I'd recommend Warframe instead

Though it may seem like I don't play this game much, I just haven't been playing on the Steam Client. If you know me pretty well, I've probably put well over a thousand hours into the game. Nevertheless, let's get into the review of this game.

STORYBlacklight Retribution is a sequel off of Blacklight: Tango Down where a known Military commander known as 'Klein' from 'Merica gets lost in a post-coldwar apocalypse somewhere in Russia and that 'Merica sends off the team known as 'Blacklight' to rescue Klein using their futuristic smart armor and X-Ray Vision. As you can expect off most Free-To-Play shooters, it's not very eye-grabbing, but it definitely sets the tone for what this game will have to offer.

GRAPHICS/AESTHETICSBlacklight Retribution features an adequate number of options to choose from. There's no setting to change all of them, but the game supports up to 1080p and will allow for multiple monitor support.* VSync, Dynamic Shadows, Static/Dynamic Decals, Dynamic Lighting, Post-Processing MLAA, Depth of Field, and DX11 Tessellation are just some of the many options you can choose from when coming into the game.

As far as aesthetics go, it's very difficult to play the game under the lowest settings without saying that the game looks like your average Call of Duty-esque shooter with a twist. As a minor suggestion, turn off Depth of Field to see more contrasting colors, because the main color palette behind most maps are Grey and Brown. Don't get me wrong though. There are a lot of colors being used, but the more vibrant ones tend to be out of place or areas where it was placed because it was a requirement set out from the manager.

GAMEPLAY90% of the Game's content is based on customizing your weapon and yourself. It's definitely worth a try customizing some things, because you won't know what awesome new build you can create. I myself can tell you this reliably as most of my YouTube videos consist of making random builds and trying them out. If on the off chance however you're not up to customizing weapons and you just want to jump into the game, that is perfectly fine too.

There are premades created by the community that you can purchase and try out for yourself. There's definitely no shortage of those builds too, where they have elemental ammo to silenced laser-like machine guns to explosive boll-action rifles, as well as poisonous shotgun pellets that you can attach. As far as the most powerful gun goes, it really depends on what kind of player you are, because when you customize these parts, these stats aren't just "+1 Sweg". They are quite literal game-changing stats.

Of course, when you're finally done finding that holy grail of a weapon, that's when you also need to find that holy grail of an Equipment Build. Yes, you can customize literally everything you could ever want. If that didn't stop you, there are taunts, titles, and numerous voices you can choose your character to have. For what they plan to add on, the combinations you can achieve through this game is truly unsurpassable.

Oh yeah, and there's HRV. I don't think I need to explain the "Temporary Wallhex" that the rest of these reviewers may have done, but they all know that despite being a "Game-breaking" item, it definitely accounts to pretty much 85% of all the deaths we have, aside from sheer derping. If you're still wondering whether the game is actually fun, I think you should let the hours played do the talking. It's a really fun game for those willing to put some time into it.

BUISNESS MODELIf you came from a series of Free To Plays from 2007, this game will give your wallet a lot of leeway. You won't need to spend $1000 let alone $100 to get everything you want. Perfect World as a premium service already gives out so many things for free, it'd be eye-opening to see how much money they would earn if they didn't put this much effort to keep this game as free as possible. To keep the amount of time spent to get a new type of gun into perspective, there will be times where you just spend One Match (10 mins) to get a new receiver. Other times it will take you five matches (1 Hour).

There's NO REPAIR SYSTEM, by the way. Everything that you purchase permanently will not break or rust at a certain point and disappear. The only items that will are ones that explicitly say "7Days" or "30Days", and even then you can choose to activate those weapons or keep them on the rainy day that you want to try it out. Great feeling to not have to care over having to maintain your weapon.

YOU GET A LOT OF STUFF FOR FREE. It's gone to the point where a lot of the community in the Perfect World Forums are super-entitled to receive stuff for playing for "X" number of years. I've been playing since the release on Steam, and I think I can say that there's a lot of bull-oney going on over there. For what people get for free over here, it's really just armor / weapon camos (CSGO Skins). Like I said, Perfect World Entertainment seems to give a lot of stuff out for free without recognizing it, and the community just eats it up.

If on the off-chance you do decide to deposit money into the game and you're new, you can purchase higher-level items as an early-access tool. You can however, just level up and purchase it. So if anything, I highly suggest depositing the money to buy the skins. Some will definitely entice you, as I reminisce the days where I thought I'd never put money to buy a skin. THE SKINS WILL ENTICE YOUR SOUL.

OVERALL & CURRENT SITUATIONIt being a great game is an understatement. People can say all they want about whether I'm a "fanboy" over this game, but like it or not, this game took many steps outward to really make a name for itself especially within the Free-To-Play community. There's just so much to be said, and yet my review merely describes the tip of this iceberg.

Out of all of the Free-To-Play FPS Games, I still would have to place this as number one after the past 3 years. If you managed your way through my review, I would love to hear your opinion in-game!

This game is by far the best game i've ever played, the graphics are amazing, gunplay feels so fun, this is your typical run and gun game

What makes this game iconic and different from CoD?

well this game does not have a mini-map like we've seen in other shooters, in BL:R players will use "HRV" aka "wallhacking" no no, this game is not about hacking, its how the game mechanics is, players use HRV to see "enemies through walls", the player is only able to move around, jump, and sprint, which may increase the chances of a HRV user being easily killed, and it's limited after using. By that, after using the HRV players will have to predict the next move their enemies are going to.

Control By far smoother, fast, the weapons all handle differently it depends on how you modify your weapon,

Level Design BL:R map designs are amazing

Business ModelThis game is full of microtransactions, you are limited to 1,3 and 7 days and if you want a permanent weapon it might take hours to get GPs as for starters.

On the other hand real money would be easier to get more weapons and items

Verdict Overall this game is hell of a lot of fun, you might get frustrated by getting new weapons as for starters but later you'll get the hang of it

My hours are inaccurate. I'm a long lived Beta Tester telling his tale.

After countless years of FPS experience, I must say Blacklight sits at the top of my list. I consider this the best game ever made and it makes the latest BF and CoD look like childsplay, even graphicswise. Here's why.

Modern day shooters often have limited weapons, you can only fit so many of them into the game before the files gets too large. Not the case with blacklight, there're as many weapons as your imagination allows there to be. And there's always a perfect, and by perfect, I mean perfect perfect, weapon for everyone. Same goes with your playable character, you get to decide exactly how tough and how agile he will be via choosing a variety of armor combinations.

Gameplay, there's so friggin many gamemodes and maps. There's the classical last team standing, search and destroy, capture the flag, team deathmatch, deathmatch, domination, netwar, seige, onslaugh, king of the hill, over a ever growing pool of maps that currently holds 15 , which are Decay, Containment, Vortex, Deadlock, Center, Helodeck, Metro, Seaport, Dropzone, Slumlord, Heavy Metal, Evac, Offshore, Vertigo, Nuken.

Consumer balance, for those of you who just wants to show off, there're awesome shiny camos and helmet variants you can buy, for those of you who are skilled, blacklight offers everything you need to swag it off to the community, for those of you who'd like to collect and merch stuff, there're nodes and shiny rare collectables you can fuse / trade / sell, and for those that are just starting out on yer FPS career, blacklight provides you with everything you'll ever need to pull yourself up from the bootstraps and be the best possible player ingame.

And best of all, it's free. You don't have to pay a single dime on the game to get just about everything ingame for permenant. If you don't like the game, you can simply delete it out of your computer, no $60 regrets whatsoever.

Do keep in mind that this game was developed in late 2010, and its graphics are still quite enjoyable and even comparable to that of the AAA titles out there today.

However, good things just doesn't seem to last, Blacklight was such a great game, but the devs / publishers coulsn't get their ♥♥♥♥ straight and the development was delayed for years to come. You may encounter a hacker here and there nowadays. Along with being pitted against old guys that may seem frustrating to deal with for their gears and skills are on a whole different level, yet you are defenseless and feeble. 'tis all due to the lack of a large playerbase for a game this great, but I do tell ye that the renaissance for BLR is underway,

This game has great graphics and a lot of different playing modes. I commend BLR for not falling into the 'Pay 2 Win' category with every gun I've seen so far being well balanced. I was disappointed to see the community is quite small now, but my guess is this mostly because the devs don't even update this game anymore. Given how polished it already was however, it's not as big a deal as some people make it out to be. The wide variety of gadgets and customised weapons you can obtain keep the gameplay interesting and sets it aside from other fps games. At the end of the day this game is free to play and you should definitely try it out.

The game is very unique because of the customization for weapons and characters. Damage per weapon is pretty damn balanced and again, can be customized to the player's liking. So in short, very awesome game!

Ive played this game for a decent amount of time to firmly say that this is a very good game. My only gripe with the game is even though you can make any weapon you want it takes forever to do so and pushes you consantly with if you want to have it, you gotta pay for it type marketing. I found myself annoyed by this because I really hate games that do this.

the game at its core is fun although I do find that every gun kills very quickly and if you have slower internet speeds then this problem will surface quite often for you.

the game play is crazy and face paced and introduces the ability to see through walls and many other abilitys that most triple A shooters dispise having. while playing this game you have no mini map so when you play you will have to use your wall see through ability to judge where the enemies are. Reflexes are needed to be sharp while playing this game.

When I started it was one of the best FPS I have ever played. The HRV mechanic encourages agressive play with minimal "camping" of spots and customization is unbelievable. Some of my source-engine-or-die friends have said that it "feels strange, but I attribute that to their refusal to broaden their horizons as much as anything. The weapon balancing leaves a bit to be desired - some receivers are just plain better than others. Fortunately for new players, the hands down, universally agreed upon best weapon in the game (well, except for that one that glissa dude) is the basic assault rifle, which every player starts out with. From there, the other receivers are just specializations to suit a particular preferred playstyle.

At this point, the game is far past its prime and the victim of neglect by both its publishers and its developers (shame on the publishers for awful servers and even worse server maintenance) and shame on the developers for sabotaging the game by putting out that horrible slumlord port from tango down that broke more things than it fixed.

Regarding whether it's p2w or not, it certainly is not pay to win. It takes a while to earn the gp to unlock things permanently, but not nearly so long in this game as it does in games like planetside 2 et. al, and everything in the base gme can be unlocked/accessed without needing to pay any real dollars. At the curent time, I would not recommend paying any sort of real money into the game because its future is up in the air, but to each his own.

TL;DR BLR is a visually pretty game that is poorly optimized and suffers from a myriad of developer and publisher related issues. It should be completely dead by now but its just so damn fun to play that whats left of the community just cant seem to let it go. I would definitely give it a try if you haven played it, but I would not invest any money into it, as the several hundred dollars I have spent have clearly been used as fuel at the Perfect World company Barbeque.